Chapter Three – The Empty Peak
Fifty years.
Fifty winters and summers had come and gone since Emrys first looked up at the high peak and saw the figure that halted a Wyvern with its presence alone. He had climbed that mountain inch by inch, year after year, bones shattered and healed, essence refined and tempered. Now, at long last, he stood atop the summit.
The wind howled through the stones like an elegy.
There was no temple. No Master waiting with riddles and wisdom. Only a skeleton, seated in perfect meditation—cross-legged, back straight, head slightly tilted as if still listening to the world. The bones were white and pure, glimmering faintly in the thin mountain light. Not a scrap of flesh remained, but the structure was intact, unmarred, perfectly refined.
A Martial Master who had refined their body… and died alone.
As Emrys approached, the last threads of lingering essence drifted into the air like mist, dissolving with his arrival. A breath released, a legacy ended.
He bowed deeply. He didn't know the Master's name, their story, or their path. But in death, they had guided him farther than most living men ever could.
Emrys turned to the cliff's edge.
From the summit, he could see it all—the winding trail, the jagged gorge, and far below, the patch of rock where he had once lain broken, humiliated by a Wyvern and humbled by his own limitations. He stared down for a long while, then instinctively let his 5th Pillar Aura flow.
It shimmered outward—deep and resonant like the bones of the earth themselves—settling over the valley like a silent benediction. It was as though the mountain, and the bones behind him, had waited for this moment. A cycle completed.
But there was still more.
The Sixth Pillar: Organ Refinement.
Sixty years of inward mastery. Unlike the bones, the organs could not be broken and reset. They had to be protected, nourished, slowly cultivated through precise control of breath and internal essence. Emrys knew he could not afford to rely on instinct alone.
He descended the mountain with a new purpose: to learn.
Across the continent he traveled again—not as a warrior seeking duels, but as a student seeking wisdom. He met physicians, alchemists, battlefield healers, and monks who preserved ancient anatomical knowledge. He studied everything: scrolls on humors and fluids, dissection practices, even peasant midwives who understood the beating of the heart better than court scholars.
He came to understand the organs not as parts of a machine, but as the soul's vessels:
• The brain, master of memory, instinct, and clarity.
• The heart, the emperor of blood, rhythm, and emotional force.
• The lungs, vast chambers that pulled in qi from the sky and released waste from within.
• The liver, purifier and power-storer.
• The kidneys, governors of essence and stamina.
• The stomach and intestines, alchemical crucibles where energy transformed from food to fuel.
• And the lesser-discussed, but no less critical: pancreas, spleen, bladder, gallbladder, thymus, adrenal glands, and gonads—all vital to balance, vitality, and harmony.
For sixty years, Emrys refined.
His technique was simple, yet demanding: deep breathing, far beyond what he used in tendon or bone refinement, guided his essence in slow, coiling spirals through his body. He visualized each organ like a star, each breath like a tide washing it clean, strengthening its boundaries, and bathing it in the vitality of his will.
Over time, something changed.
• His heart beat with the rhythm of a war drum, unshaken by fear or fatigue.
• His lungs could hold breath for entire battles, allowing him to fight in silence.
• His blood surged rich and red, flooding his muscles with strength and speed.
• His liver and kidneys purified not only toxins, but excess emotions, keeping his mind clear.
• Even his brain, long tuned to the body's mechanics, seemed to expand in clarity.
The refinement brought him power—but not just martial strength.
He gained endurance, resilience, and eventually, control over life processes themselves.
With a deep breath, he could emit a force so intense his exhalation took shape—snakes of breath, slithering with venomous intent, winding through the air like phantoms.
With meditation, he could enter suspended animation—his heartbeat slowing to near stillness, his breathing ceasing entirely, his body cold as death but alive with internal essence. In this state, even fatal wounds could be postponed, deadly poisons slowed, and recovery made possible in impossible circumstances.
He had become a Martial Grandmaster.
And yet… his journey was not over.
The bones had given him structure.
The organs had given him vitality.
But Marrow, Blood, and finally, the Meridians—those lay ahead.